TERMS
Imagery brings your poem
to life. It shows your reader exactly what you are thinking of or
feeling. In order to write effective imagery, use the following:
simile--a
comparison of two objects using like or as
ex.) My love for creative writing is as endless as the ocean
metaphor--a
direct comparison of two objects without using like or as
ex.) My love for creative writing is an unquenchable thirst.
personification--giving
human qualities to non human or inanimate things
ex.) My locker ate my portfolio.
"WATER"--by Robert Lowell
Read the
poem below and list any types of imagery you find on a separate sheet of
paper.
"Water"--Robert Lowell
It was a Maine lobster town--
each morning boatloads of hands
pushed off for granite
quarries on the islands,
and left dozens of bleak
white frame houses stuck
like oyster shells
on a hill of rock,
and below us, the sea lapped
the raw little match-stick
mazes of a weir,
where the fish for bait were trapped.
Remember? We sat on a slab
of rock.
From this dance in time,
it seems the color
of iris, rotting and turning purpler,
but it was only
the usual gray rock
turning the usual green
when drenched by the sea.
The sea drenched the rock
at our feet all day,
and kept tearing away
flake after flake.
One night you dreamed
you were a mermaid clinging to
a wharf-pile
and trying to pull
off the barnacles with your hands.
We wished our two souls
might return like gulls
to the rock. In the end,
the water was too cold for us.
YOUR TURN
Write
a paragraph describing a scene you have always remembered. The scene
can involve nature, people, a personal experience, a combination thereof,
etc. Describe everything you can remember and everything that could
help place the reader "there." Use at least two of the three types
of imagery (simile, metaphor, or personification). Write as much
as you can.
Then, pick your
favorite phrase or sentence from your paragraph. Write a poem on
this experience, as Robert Lowell has done.